Volcano Pele erupts on Jupitersís moon Io

Fig. 9.14 . During its flyby on 4-5 March 1979, the Voyager 1 spacecraft captured this image of an active volcano on Jupiterís energetic moon Io. The volcano has been named Pele, after the Hawaiian goddess of the volcano. Its erupting plume is visible at the upper right, rising to a height of about 300 kilometers above the surface in an umbrella-like shape. The plume has been ejected from the triangular-shaped blue and white complex of hills (right center). In this enhanced color image, we see the plume fallout as concentric brown and yellow rings, the largest stretching across 1400 kilometers and covering an area the size of Alaska. Pele remained active for at least two decades, when the Galileo spacecraft imaged new deposits from its plumes in the later 1990s. Large tidal distortions raised in Io by Jupiter heat the moonís interior, and the hot magma then expands, rises and forces its way out through volcanoes. (Courtesy of NASA/JPL/USGS.)